


Ansrivarr

by notcrindy



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 06:26:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12451475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcrindy/pseuds/notcrindy
Summary: Lup doesn't die, but she forgets, and so does everyone else.(In fewer words: Lucretia fucks up.)





	Ansrivarr

On the day that Lup forgets, she nearly dies.

Doesn’t, though. Cyrus “I’m Under the Thrall of a Relic You Made, Lup, so This Really Is Your Bad, But I’m Still a Total Fuckface” Rockseeker tries to sneak up behind her with a knife, and she manages to wrestle it away from him and knock him back into the vault. Her last coherent thought before the static sets in is that the dagger was laced with some kind of poison, so she lucked out there.

But something is wrong. Her head spins and buzzes. Where is she?  _ Who _ is she? She doesn’t know. She has no clue. Maybe trauma or some bullshit like that, she tells herself. It’ll come back to her in a second if she just calms down.

She sits and waits in that cave, with an umbrella she doesn’t recognize at her side, hugging her chest to her knees. She finds herself crying after it doesn’t come back to her, long heaving sobs, and she doesn’t understand anything. She just doesn’t understand.

It takes a while of fucking sobbing with a raw throat for her to try to think sensibly. The only thing she knows right now is that she needs help. Maybe there are clues to her identity hidden somewhere on her. Anything in her pockets, on her clothes. She figures no one’s really coming this way anyway and gets undressed, inspecting every inch until she finds, written on the back tag of a shirt “LUP.” It’s lazily scrawled, as though whoever wrote it there didn’t count on someone having a dire need for any scrap of info about themselves in a cave.

“Lup,” she says. Her voice is hoarse.

“Okay, then. I’m Lup. What else.” She scavenges the pockets of the jeans, finding a big ol’ cinnamon hard candy in there, some loose change--that might be her wallet over there--and it says “IPRE” on it. Something about stars floats through her head, somehow both meaningless and totally meaningful. It’s on the clothes, too.

“IPRE,” she says.

The phrase has all the significance in the world and none at all.

She needs to find out what it means.

So she ventures out of the cave. She’s not sure there’s enough money for her to live somewhere, and she’s too shook to care, but she can get by on food and such for now with what she’s got. She starts roaming around, and if she’s not asking about food, she’s asking about the “IPRE,” does anyone know what it is, what it does, and no one’s ever heard of it. Do any of these people know her? Not so far.

She does this awhile, and nearly gives up, but one day she asks someone who knows.

“Hey, lady, d'you know the IPRE or what?”

The woman in front of her looks like she’s seen a ghost.

“Look, I’m sorry, I don’t really mean to be givin’ off a creepsville vibe right now, I’ve just been kind of like. Living in a cave. Yikes, that made it worse. Ouch, Lup.”

No response at first, wide eyes.

“Lup?”

“You know Lup?” Finally, someone who seems to know what the shit they’re talking about! Lup’s pretty stoked, but the lady in front of her sure isn’t feelin’ that vibe right now. In fact, she looks a little bit like she might fall to the floor or throw up. “Is it… ...is it bad? Aw, shit. Figures I’d pick a name that sounded--”

“What have I done,” the lady asks, vacantly. She’s pretty young, but she’s got this air of elegance about her that’s impossible to deny. Something authoritative, maybe. Something attractive? Probably. But right now she looks haunted.

“Um, what?” Lup laughs nervously. “Look, I’m sorry I bothered you, I guess I’ll go back to--”

Just like that the lady snaps out of it, grabbing her hand like they’re familiar. “No, Lup, please don’t do that. It’s… ...it’s okay.” She composes herself. “It’s perfectly okay, but you need to come with me right away, okay?”

Lup flinches at the touch of someone she doesn’t know. “Who the hell says?”

The woman takes another breath, and Lup can see she’s trying not to cry, or something. “Listen. I know the predicament you’re in. You can’t remember who you are, right?”

Lup nods slowly, eyes filling with tears. “Um, yeah. I’ve been trying and trying, right, but I just can’t seem to put a name to a face. My face. Which… I don’t even really know what it looks like, so. Uh… ...yeah, it’s… ...it’s pretty rough.”

“Well, well.” The woman says, trying to steel herself against Lup’s tears somehow. “Well, I know it is, Lup. Of course it is. But I… I know you. My name is Lucretia. I know you don’t remember me, but I know you. And I can give you a safe place to stay, and I can give you information, but you’re not safe like this. Disoriented like this.”

Lup starts to cry.

“So can you trust me, Lup? Can you come with me, please?”

It’s hard to look her in the eyes when she’s crying, so she tries her best to calm down.

“Okay. Not sleeping in a cave sounds cool.”

“I bet it does. Come along now.”

She lets Lucretia hold her hand and walks alongside her, desperate for anything.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this was... ...uh, not terrible. not sure if i'm going to expand on it or not, i really think i might sometime, but i just got a flash of inspiration and had to write it. if i expand on this, consider this the prologue.


End file.
